MOBILE, Alabama – It took less than five minutes for a District Court judge to deny a defendant’s request to submit her own, third-party lie detector test on Thursday – much to the chagrin of her attorney.

She is also the mother of Brittney Wood – a Mobile woman who went missing under suspicious circumstances in 2012 – thought to have once been a victim in the alleged sex ring.

On March 5, Chessie Wood told a Fox 10 news reporter that she had commissioned a licensed polygraph examiner to administer a lie detector test, the results of which are not admissible as evidence in many states, including Alabama. A fact Assistant District Attorney Nicki Patterson pointed out to Judge York on Thursday.

Even adding to the official record that a third-party polygraph was performed is a stretch, Patterson said, but it can be done with everyone’s agreement.

“It can only be introduced under the rules if both parties agree, and the state doesn’t agree,” she said.

When defense attorney Michael McDuffie began to introduce the motion for consideration, Patterson cut him off, saying, “I don’t think we need a 20 minute harangue . . . on what the defendant did or didn’t do.”

Judge York agreed.

“It’s my motion, can’t I at least proceed for a couple of minutes?” McDuffie asked the judge.

York’s response was to deny the motion.

Afterward, Patterson said she felt the defender was purposefully “attempting to manipulate public opinion and the potential jury pool” for the trial.

Polygraphs, she said, are not admissible due to being “scientifically unreliable.”